is path had been the trail to Boise Landing.

Had the girls been looking that way, they might have seen, through a
small break in the trees, some minutes after Tom left them, a string of
odd-looking wagons moving slowly along this lower trail.

First two men walked ahead, smoking their pipes and plowing through the
mud and water without regard to where they stepped. Then followed three
freshly painted green wagons--vehicles something like old-fashioned
omnibuses, but with windows in the sides and front, and a door and steps
behind. Through the roof of one a stovepipe was thrust.

Behind followed a troop of horses, with two bare-legged, wild-looking
youngsters astride each a barebacked steed, and holding the others with
leading-reins. These horses, as well as those drawing the wagons, were
sleek and well curried.

A multitude of dogs ran in the mud and water, too, but there were no
women and children about, save upon the front seats of each van with the
drivers. Sounds from within the green vehicles, however, proclaimed the
presence of a number of others.

They were a strange-looking people--all swarthy, dark-haired,
red-lipped, men and women alike having their ears pierced. The rings in
the lobes of the women's ears were much larger than the ornaments in
those of the men.

At a certain opening in the shrubbery, the men ahead, looking upward,
beheld the stalled auto and the two girls in it. One man held up his
hand and the first wagon stopped. So did the remainder of the caravan.

The two spoke together, and then strode back to the first green van. The
window behind the driver's seat was already open and a strange face
appeared at it.

The man driving this van was young and rather handsome--in the same wild
way that Roberto was handsome. Beside him sat a comely young woman,
buxom of figure, with a child in her lap. Her head was encircled with a
yellow silk kerchief, she wore a green, tight-fitting bodice, and her
short skirt was of a peculiar purple. She wore black stockings and neat
black pumps on her feet.

Between these two on the seat, from the open window, was thrust the
wicked, haggard head of a woman who might have been a hundred from the
network of wrinkles in her face, and her generally aged appearance. But
her eyes--black as sloes--were as sharp as a bird's. Her lips were gray,
thin, and drew back when she spoke, displaying several strong, yellow
fangs rather than teeth!

When she spoke, it was with